The Reason
by RandomNinjaMetal
Summary: An attempt at creating a past and a future for a certain suicidal sportsman, mixing the game and anime. Originally written as a gift for a friend.


The Reason by RandomNinjaMetal

I wrote this last fall as a gift for my real world best friend, known on the internet as Seppukumaru. The begining of it is basically my attempt at coming up with a believable backstory for everyone's favorite suicidal idiot sportsman, as well as to fit together the game and the anime. It kinda fails. The rest of the story, which I may or may not post here, involved Seppukumaru meeting the future characters (Jurokubei and the New Age team), but the story stalled out and ended up not being finished. But hey, I love any excuse to write Seppukumaru and Jurokubei, especially with them interacting- idiots are awesome! Anyway, if you're reading this, understand that I can't really do this sort of thing very well, but I tried anyway, since it was for a friend. If you don't like my writing, I appologize. Believe it or not, the story actually starts getting really funny right after what I've posted, but I don't feel like editing up and posting that part right now. Maybe later.

Anyway, this owes a debt to Beatlesfan931 for his translations, Sarahsuke for assisting in the translations and also for her interpretations of the canon, some of which I borrowed for this story, and of course, the Sep, who helped me come up with a lot of the stuff that ended up in the prologue, and was the reason I wrote the story in the first place.

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Prologue

In what might have been his irresponsible youth (he was never really sure, since he neither had any knowledge of his age, nor an idea as to how long he'd live), the man that had then called himself Harakiri had been very active. During his restless travels, he became interested in the physical contests, called 'sports,' that were played on a planet known as Earth. Discovering that he had just the right type of body for these, he became obsessed. He gave himself the title 'Ultimate Sportsman' and continued his travels, searching for new games to master. In the process, he continued to build his own strength.

The second phase of his life began when he was stranded on a small planet after his ship was heavily damaged. Lacking the materials to fix it himself, he left it and sought out any sort of life that could help him. By luck or design the planet was indeed inhabited by a race of beings that, strangely, spoke one of the languages that he had picked up during his time on Earth. Although for the most part untrusting, he managed to befriend four of them, who, impressed by his physical strength and charismatic personality (amongst themselves, they were convinced that he was some sort of divine being), helped him procure the items required to repair his ship. After the repairs were complete, he asked them to come with him, and they, also young and irresponsible, said yes. Because of their somewhat sadistic nature and skills with swords, he collectively called them 'Tsujigiri.'

Not long after, when one of the four casually mentioned the meaning of Harakiri's name, he gained a new obsession- suicide. Convincing himself that (since it required pushing one's body to its absolute farthest limit) suicide was a sport, he gave himself a second name. Now known as Harakiri Seppukumaru, he continued traveling.

Time passed, and, growing bored and restless, he announced that he was ready to attempt seppuku- the ultimate sport. This horrified the Tsujigiri, who had come to love the godlike being that they considered their leader. Desperate to save him, they trapped him on a planet called Impact, hoping that he would get over this obsession.

This put into play events that would have the most far-reaching effect on the life of Harakiri Seppukumaru. Still restless, and now angry with the Tsujigiri's mutiny, Seppukumaru refused to sit quietly and started causing trouble on the planet he was trapped on. This brought Goemon and his group into his life for the first of three times.

After Seppukumaru escaped Impact's clutches, he was once again stranded, this time drifting through space. Since there was nothing he could use to get traction, there was no way for him to control his movement as he slowly floated toward the sun, caught in its gravity.

The third phase of his life began just as though he felt the last of his life slipping away. As he embraced his expected death, however, he suddenly found himself back on solid ground…

He had been saved by a dark god called Makuamuge, who had seen the untapped potential and great strength in Seppukumaru. The price for this, however, was that he was now bound to work for him. Reunited with his Tsujigiri, he carried out Makuamuge's bidding, undergoing strenuous training for the dual purpose of both increasing his strength and restraining his abilities. This made him a stronger warrior, but also repressed certain skills that Makuamuge worried could be used against him. During this training, he continued to obsess over Seppuku- the one sport he had yet to master. He lost much of his interest in the other games as his mind continued to wonder exactly how it would feel to slash his own stomach open…

After this, he was sent to another world to conquer it, only to once again be pitted against Goemon. Defeated again, Makuamuge imprisoned him…

Some time later, the fourth phase of his life started. While imprisoned in Makuamuge's training facilities, Seppukumaru continued growing stronger, and began to realize his other abilities, the ones that his 'leader' had suppressed. With these, he overthrew Makuamuge with surprising ease. Finally freed from the agreement he had been forced into when the dark being saved his life, he was once again free to wander, searching, as always, for something new to interest him. He returned to space with the Tsujigiri, but the group's explorations were cut short when, in a series of events that Seppukumaru wished he could forget, his four friends were killed.

In the many lonely years that followed, he never got over his guilt.

End Prologue

Chapter One

In the years since the death of his only friends, Seppukumaru had become more restless than ever, and for the first time in his existence, he was acutely aware of his own loneliness. His pride and restlessness, however, kept him from settling on any of the many planets he explored, until after countless years of wandering, a strange turn of events brought him from that darkest phase of his life and into a much happier one.

"Déjà vu," he muttered to himself as he stepped away from the wreckage of his ship, which he had been forced to crash land on the nearest planet after it had once again become damaged. There were two differences between this and the last time, though. First, he knew he wouldn't be finding another group quite like his Tsujigiri to help him repair it. This thought made him feel all the more lonely. The second difference was that this was no random planet- this was Earth, the place where he had initially discovered and grown obsessed with sports, as well as the home of Goemon and his allies. That had been many years ago, he doubted they were still around.

Yes, Seppukumaru was aware of the fact that everyone else seemed to age and eventually die, and he blamed his longevity on his own excellent health. So he didn't expect to run into any old enemies here.

As he strode off into the woods, searching for someone to help him repair his ship, he started noticing signs of how much the planet had changed since his previous visit. The air smelled different and felt heavier, and many life forms, such as the large trees that lined the walkway, no longer seemed to be entirely organic. Time seemed to have changed the place for the worst.

After walking for several hours, he found a settlement of sorts. Here, he approached the first person he saw, feeling strange as he spoke a language that he hadn't used in a very long time. "Mr., can you tell me where I can find a large supply of metals and the tools to work them with, as well as stable uranium?"

The man just stared for a moment, before laughing and saying, "What's with the way you talk? You're pronunciation is so… antiquated!"

After laughing a few seconds more, he slapped Seppukumaru on the shoulder and added, "You selling something?" before walking away. Standing there, slightly dumbfounded, he realized that it may have been longer since he had been to this planet than he had thought. Further, his clothing style certainly looked out of place. He sighed, realizing that he may have to do something about at least one of these problems before he'd get any real communication from these strangers. Time to take some clothing…

This in itself turned out to be difficult- very few people were anywhere near his size. After about an hour of careful watching, he finally saw someone who wasn't too far from his height. From the looks of things, it would be a tight fit, but he'd been expecting that.

He followed him carefully, always staying a block or so back, waiting for an opening. He didn't need to worry about loosing this guy in the crowd- aside from his unusual height, he also had absurdly long, bright red hair that almost made it impossible not to see him.

What Seppukumaru didn't realize was that he was about to get his third encounter with Goemon, or rather, his first encounter with Goemon's descendent.

End Chapter One


End file.
